Want to go drinking with friends tonight? This startup will point you to watering holes with the happiest hours

Anand Janardhanan and Ajeesh Udumbath were the quintessential startuppers in Bangalore – young engineers working long, hard hours to get a venture off the ground, drinking hard to unwind after hours, and perpetually short of money to burn. A couple of months into the working, drinking, cash-draining cycle, the two friends did a budget check and found they were spending over INR 25,000 (US$405) every month on alcohol. That’s a lot of money here in India, especially for those in the early years of their career.

Anand and Ajeesh decided to get smart about it. They went online to find happy hours. The search led them nowhere. Even in a tech hub like Bangalore, they found no other way but to painstakingly call each watering hole to find out if they had any deals running.

When they looked around, they saw a lot of young techies, like them, were in the same predicament. So Anand and Ajeesh decided to bring cheer and solace to this crowd of thirsty tipplers – youngsters who like to hangout, unwind, chat, meet others in the same boat as them, and enjoy their drink. Not everyone could afford to pay top dollar for their dose of cheer, but they deserved a chance to have their drink and keep their shirt on too.

That was the beginning of Vgulp – “the WWW of drinking – what to drink, where to drink, and ways to drink,” according to Anand, who founded it with Ajeesh in September 2013. Apart from being a tipster for tipplers, they wanted to build a community of gulpers.

Vgulp is currently limited to Bangalore.

Vgulp co-founders Ajeesh Udumbath and Anand Janardhanan

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This is a sample from Vgulp’s blog called Gulp Mag, which tackles all kinds of topics around drinking from how to conduct yourself during a date night over a drink to why Oktoberfest isn’t just another party. Balakrishnan Subramanyan, a mixologist and sommelier, is in charge of all the content that goes up on the blog.

“We are not here to promote alcohol consumption in any way. Whether you drink or not, there are many who do. We just want to help them find awesome bars and liquor stores, and save some dough with the deals and discounts we hustle up for them,” Anand says.

The aim is to be “the online booze destination for gulpers all across India.”